


thoroughbreds

by harringroveheart



Category: Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: Canto Bight, Clones, Enemies to Lovers, First Kiss, Kylo Ren Has Issues, M/M, Post-Crait, Post-Star Wars: The Last Jedi, Smut
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-04-11
Updated: 2020-04-11
Packaged: 2021-03-01 16:41:12
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,959
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23590240
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/harringroveheart/pseuds/harringroveheart
Summary: Cantonica welcomes Kylo Ren with a storm.Or,The First Order is broke and Hux forces Kylo to go on a fundraising campaign to Canto Bight. Clone shenanigans ensue.
Relationships: Armitage Hux/Ben Solo | Kylo Ren
Comments: 9
Kudos: 29





	thoroughbreds

**Author's Note:**

> Look, I admit it, I wrote this just to make myself laugh.

Cantonica welcomes Kylo Ren with a storm, the wind rising up around him hot and hard, tearing at his hair and cape, urging him with rough intent towards the edge of the flight pad and the sea boiling hungrily some five hundred feet below. Far away, out on the purpling horizon, a spider leg of lightening touches the rind of the world – a smattering of applause and bell-like laughter from the city behind him, one monster waking to greet the other. 

Canto Bight.

The city is just now beginning to rouse, her lighted windows cutting inviting shapes against the darkening sky. Distance turns the nascent sounds of celebration melancholy, almost wistful — tinkling glass and sudden bursts of music, amplified and then snatched away by the unfurling storm — and then drowned out entirely by the deafening beat of repuslorlifts as the First Order shuttle drops out of the atmosphere above him.

The transport bobs gracelessly, engine whining as it struggles to land against the surface’s fierce updraughts, scoring the night air with the metallic taste of ozone. Foamy sea water boils up over the side of the flight pad, flecking Kylo’s boots. The flight pad, like most things Canto Bight, is more decorative than functional and it had been a welcome validation of Kylo’s piloting skill that he had been able to land his fighter without skating off the platform and into the sea. The rest of the port is empty, the yachts and pleasure cruisers of the galaxy’s wealthy elite stowed away for safekeeping. A shame. Kylo would have liked to see them.

He shakes his head slightly, trying to parse the intrusive memory from his own thoughts. 

Canto Bight had been a favorite story of Ben Solo’s. He'd asked for it again and again as a boy, enraptured each time, tucked into bed by droids the approximate shape of his mother: a city within an island within a tempest — or so the stories went. Kylo sneers half-heartedly at his own nostalgia, a clammy cast on his skin he can’t seem to shake off. In the stories, the city itself was a fortress of jewels, polished and moulded by the desert planet’s fierce winds during the day, glittering as bright as a new star at night, a beacon to greedy trespassers and hungry-hearted adventurers from all corners of the galaxy. In the droids’ stories, the real treasure was always something insipid — a friendship, forgiveness. Love. Now, looking at the city, Kylo is fairly certain the only real treasure of Canto Bight is to be found in a lucky hand of sabacc.

Credits, Kylo reminds himself fighting his distaste for the place and his purpose here. Billions and billions of credits.

The transport has drawn attention, the city unfolding and preening as obvious as an old dame waiting for an audience before putting on her earrings. The house musicians find cohesion, a warm brassy tune soaring to life, fighting the dull blast of landing gear. The streets flood with light, shifting gold and purple, a string of halo-lanterns springing to life along the perimeter of the race track and all the way down to the landing platform. Some of the casino’s early guests drift out onto balconies and terraces in pursuit of the smallest entertainment, opera glasses and libations in hand. The brutish utilitarian shape of the Order transport is an unexpected delight for them, Kylo gleans, a divertissement during the spell of unfortunate weather.

His hand twitches at his side, the feathering of his nervous system in response to the rising thrum of excitement and expectation of the men assembling at his back. He breathes in their nervous energy and turns his attention to the city, its domed plume-like buildings and broad curving balconies, its stepped amphitheaters illuminated by strings of rosy halo-lanterns, its secretive lovers’ gardens and sparkling fountains. The opulence leaves a bad taste in his mouth. Kylo wants to run through every last topiary with his lightsaber. 

The stormtroopers are in awe. They have been conditioned not to dream, but this, they think, this must be what dreaming would look like. This is almost as beautiful as the firing of the superweapon.

Kylo allows them their petty fantasies. Under their boots the galaxy is shrinking, planet after planet, almost subdued, and one day this pretty little casino town will be too — even if it won’t look so much like a jewel when they are done with it. And in any case, their childish excitement tastes better than their confusion and their disquiet — both of which Kylo knows the exact rancid smell of. But the salt flats of Crait are far behind them all now, the hollowing ache of doubt soothed by a dozen more recent successful campaigns and a merciless propaganda drive. They have learned to bury their disappointment and their failures in the dirt, under the salt.

There are no graves deep enough to hold Kylo’s failures. He scrubs brine from his lips and turns to survey his company over one shoulder.

Two squads. A token show of force, unnecessary and inescapable. Behind the stormtroopers is an even larger group of non-militants huddled together against the weather: officers with their caps stuffed under their arms; Kylo’s terrifyingly intuitive attendants; the dozen or so bookkeepers and bodyguards in the employ of Jessamine Sphess of Kuat Entralla Industries; and Sphess himself, still ambling down the transport ramp at a glacial pace, a droid at each elbow to prevent the frail old relic from blowing away.

The sight makes something sour in him. In the stories the droids told him the little force-sensitive hero was always alone, always brave. He always stole into the city by himself.

“Orders, sir,” the squadron leader asks at his back.

“Follow,” Kylo says quietly, not bothering to make himself heard over the blowing wind.

A ripple of excitement goes through the ranks regardless, plastisteel rattling as they snap to attention; ready, loyal, their minds gelling one into the other, an expanding mass, a wave of will surrendering to him louder, deeper than the first roll of thunder on the horizon, except for—

There. A sudden splinter of irritation; a familiar itching annoyance, pinching at Kylo’s awareness: Hux, elbowing his way out of the throng of troopers and crew to stab Kylo in the abdomen with his latest weapon of choice: a triple ring binder full of funding requests.

“ _Excellent_ flightmanship, Supreme Leader,” Hux says acidly, his face already ruddy with windburn. “How would you like me to account for the excess fuel spend for the venture? As a scouting detail or a joy trip?”

“It’s just called flying, Hux.”

“Oh,” Hux says, all faux-surprise, “Is it? Is that what we train our pilots to do?” He waves a hand behind him at the two black-clad pilots fussing over Kylo’s idle TIE fighter. “I had _no_ idea.”

The wind hardens, whipping around them in a flurry so that the edges of Hux’s greatcoat slap against Kylo’s boots. Hux keeps one arm banded firmly over his chest to keep it snug across his shoulders, determined to look impressive, but the wind has flattened his hair over his forehead, somewhat mitigating the effect.

Kylo scowls down at the binder Hux had just attempted to disembowel him with and shoves it uncaringly at his hovering ensign. “Find it,” he says. The young man bobs out an awkward curtsy under the weight of the thing. “What’s this one then?” he asks Hux disinterestedly. 

Hux sniffs as if he isn’t already pitching a tent over the opportunity to rant about his latest project. As if he hasn’t been staring daggers at the back of Kylo’s head the entire past week, rehearsing.

“An essential initiative, Supreme Leader,” Hux says, falling into step as Kylo takes off over the long spindly walkway towards the city proper. “A non-active asset that will vastly augment our latent military firepower. In layman’s terms—"

Kylo hands over his pilot’s gloves to a valet who has run up alongside them, swapping them for a lighter smoother pair. “I’m not a layman.”

“Of course not,” Hux says slickly. “A pseudo-orbital quantum converter then.”

“What’s that?” Kylo says absently, already intent on not listening – his usual approach to anything Hux says that came with an explanatory memorandum.

“I’m so glad you asked, Supreme Leader—”

The sad thing is, Kylo thinks as Hux launches into one of his characteristic, jaw-droppingly boring speeches, is that he genuinely is. Glad. To have the opportunity to brag about his work, this latest and completely transparent attempt to spend their dwindling reserve of money on an outlandish and improbable feat of technology that will vault his name into the annals of galactic history. Hux has a lack of conversation partners aboard the Finalizer – something which he convinces himself is because of his unmatched intellect, but in truth, Hux just lacks the social skills to recognize that his colleagues don’t enjoy being assaulted with all the glorious minutiae of invention in their rostered lunch break.

His old master, Snoke, pre-bifurcation, had often laughed about it behind Hux’s back – how easy it was to reel the general in with a little flattery, to make him feel singularly intelligent, visionary. Unique. He had only trusted Kylo with that little joke. Only Kylo had been true enough, worthy enough, to share in his master’s contempt…

“—sized reactor that could potentially harness an unprecedented amount of kyber extract—” Hux is saying, working himself into a lather, his pupils turned to pinpoints. Kylo increases the length of his strides so that the man has to skip every fourth step to stay alongside him. Hux has frustratingly long legs, but his commitment to good posture and his uniform typically keeps his steps tight and choppy. Kylo can usually escape him.

“—and with reduced full-power recycle we can achieve pinpoint accuracy, or as I like to call it, pin- _planet_ accuracy.” Hux is chuckling to himself now.

The long crossing from the flight pad to the city has no guardrails and narrows at points. If they continue to walk side by side he can make it look like an accident.

Stars, Hux would just love that. The man has a dozen contingencies in place for his canonization in the event of a wrongful death. He’d probably have to spend the remainder of his leadership staring at a life-sized carbonite statue of the prick.

“What’s the shape?” Kylo asks abruptly, already knowing the answer.

Hux gives a little cough, his rant coming to an abrupt halt. “Spherical,” he says, too neutrally. “A sphere.”

Kylo raises his eyebrows. “Death Star-shaped, would you say?” He holds his hand out without looking back. The ensign passes him two pages of flimsi from the brief.

“Chapter twelve and again in the appendices, sir,” he yells over the wind, grappling with the cumbersome binder and its wildly fluttering pages. “He’s word-replaced _Starkiller_ but there are several truncating inconsistencies, including ‘Untitled Project-Killer Base.’”

Hux scoffs, turning red. “The capabilities of my weapon—”

“You’re not getting funding for _Starkiller Two_.”

“Of course not. I would never be so on the nose as to call it that,” Hux lies.

The ensign pipes up from behind them, “He’s got Captain Peavey executed again, sir. At page 300 — and again at 313.”

Kylo rolls his eyes. “Remove it.”

“A terrible oversight,” Hux concedes, already holding out a sheaf of replacement pages, paginated and in laminate. “Why kill a man twice.”

“Why kill a man at all,” Kylo mutters.

“Yes, that sounds like sound logic, Supreme Leader,” Hux says snidely. 

“Ensign, announce General Hux’s immediate demotion.”

“Very well, but I would like my binder back,” Hux says.

“Ensign, destroy the binder.”

Hux makes a sharp gesture. “Belay that, Ensign—” His words terminate in an uncharacteristic gasp. In making the gesture he has released his grip on the lapels of his coat and it rips off his shoulders in a whirl, shooting out over the churning water like a giant black bird. Kylo catches it without thinking, a reflex, drawing it back into his grip with the force and shoving it at the general’s chest, taking off towards the city once more before the other man can comment on it.

It only takes seconds for Hux to catch up. “You might at least consider allocating a measure of funds to the commission of some more fitting regalia.” He sounds breathless but his disdain is clear, and Kylo doesn’t need to look to know Hux is eyeing his usual dark clothes with distaste.

“Of course, General,” Kylo says, flip. “Yellow robe or gold?”

Hux levels a scowl at him. “I suppose I should be thankful you’re not in combat blacks. These are friendly negotiations you will remember.” He eyes the lightsaber hilt hooked to Kylo’s belt pointedly. “I’d hoped you would represent the Order in something a little more…diplomatic.”

“That’s rich. I seem to remember a suggestion from your direct superior — that would be me, Hux— that you wear your new dress uniform to the negotiations.”

Hux blanches. “It’s ceremonial.”

“I would prefer you wear it,” Kylo says benevolently.

“I would prefer it weren’t orange.”

“It’s not orange,” Kylo says, enjoying the displeased turmoil of Hux’s emotions. The general preaches against vanity and yet is quite preoccupied with the trappings of his own status. Whenever Kylo grows bored or suspicious enough to tune into Hux’s private moments he more often than not finds the general reverently stroking the rank bands on his uniform sleeve or polishing his jackboots with a fervour unique to the deeply sexually repressed. “I’m surprised, General. I thought you would be well pleased to wear the color of your precious order.”

“ _My_ order, sir?”

Kylo clenches his jaw – and then consciously unclenches it, wary of the remaining half-life of his adult teeth. He settles instead for the usual fantasy of Hux being slowly trash compacted to death and shouting ow ow ow quite satisfactorily.

“Our order,” Kylo amends. “That I rule over.”

“Oh yes,” Hux says snidely, ignoring Kylo’s dark tone of warning, “I suppose that’s why you took the title of Supreme _Ruler_.”

“Actually, I like that. Ensign,” Kylo calls over his shoulder. The young man continues hop-skipping awkwardly to keep up with the two taller men, head buried in his work. “Start new dictation: new call sign and rank: Supreme Ruler.”

Hux’s face drops. “Ren, you— Don’t be absurd. We don’t _alliterate_.”

“Ensign. Further dictation: Head-General Hux.”

“Stop it, please.”

“Admiral Armitage?”

“Is that an official promotion?”

He’s circled in front of Kylo eagerly, walking backwards, completely undeterred by the wind that pushes him to stagger from side to side. Kylo uses the force to keep him from gaining too much momentum and marching himself right over the edge. Hux doesn’t notice this kindness of course, too busy running his mouth and ruining Kylo’s good mood.

“You know, if the negotiations here go well we may be in a bargaining position with our generous investors to ask for an advance on more than another weapon. We may even be looking at enough security for” — he licks his lips — “fleet expansion.”

“We have a fleet.”

“Not a very _big_ one,” Hux says, his voice lowered, so that only Kylo can hear. “I’m just saying, if you could find it within yourself to be civil to our new business partners for the next few days, you may find we catch more flies with honey than with poison.” He punctuates this statement with a completely fraudulent and objectively terrible smile at someone over Kylo’s shoulder — probably Jessamine Sphess, who, incidentally, Hux is poisoning to death.

“Vinegar.”

Hux looks confused. “How do you kill a man with vinegar?”

“No, that’s not—” Kylo sighs. “Remind me how someone with your backwater upbringing made it up the ranks so fast.”

“The same way as you did, Supreme Leader,” Hux says, slippery as an eel. “With hard work and determination.”

“More like nepotism and assassination,” Kylo mutters.

“Yes. As I said, the same as you.”

Kylo shoots him a warning glance in place of a hand on the other man’s throat. “Careful.”

A small congregation of officials from the Barosi trade delegation have come out to meet them and they huddle together under a gazebo, their vestments snapping on the wind like flags. Their clothing is sheer, Kylo realizes as they draw closer, designed to move and flow with the weather.

“Well, great, everyone’s naked.”

“A cultural eccentricity, Supreme Leader,” Hux says, spinning on his heel to face the delegation, falling back into step at Kylo’s side. Kylo can hear the distinct nasality in his tone that means he is suppressing a smile. 

“You could have warned me.”

“But I did, Supreme Leader. During the initial brief. If I recall correctly, you were ‘just resting your eyes’.”

“Sire!” one of the sheer-robed attendants yells, breaking away from the group to greet them. He bows prettily, his whole cock and balls exposed by an errant gust of wind.

“I believe it is a Barosi custom to exchange greetings in the form a kiss,” Hux says, as insincere as a junker orphan.

Kylo rolls his eyes. Hux and his counterfeit patrician values, assuming that such small intimacies could possibly embarrass Kylo when he’s spent a whole other lifetime bending to kiss papery-dry hands and powdered cheeks at the behest of his mother, and later, to lick blood with adoration from the boots of his master.

“Don’t embarrass me in there,” Kylo says without looking back. “This isn’t Arkanis. People don’t eat with their hands.”

He doesn’t bother to turn to see if the barb lands, already stepping forward to receive the first kiss. The force beats like a second heart under his ribs, quickening to purpose.

**Author's Note:**

> Comment or come say hi (please)  
> [@harringroveheart on Tumblr](https://harringroveheart.tumblr.com/post/613274585630146560/maybe-there-is-a-beast-harringroveheart)!  
> 


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